Defense Attorneys Persuade Alameda County District Attorney to Agree
to Overturn Conviction and Dismiss Case

OAKLAND, Calif--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Keker & Van Nest LLP and the Northern California Innocence Project at
Santa Clara University School of Law today announced they have
successfully petitioned the Alameda County Superior Court to overturn
the wrongful conviction of their client, Ronald Ross, for premeditated
attempted murder. Mr. Ross’s attorneys argued that newly discovered
evidence and proof of false testimony at his original 2006 trial
entitled him to a new trial. After three days of evidentiary hearings,
the Alameda District Attorney Nancy O’Malley joined Mr. Ross’s petition
asking the Court to set aside Mr. Ross’s conviction. On February 20,
2013, Alameda Superior Court Judge Jon Rolefson signed an order granting
Mr. Ross’s habeas petition and vacating the prior convictions and
sentence. On February 22, 2013, the Alameda District Attorney formally
dismissed the charges, after which the court ordered Mr. Ross’s release
from custody. Mr. Ross served nearly seven years of a 25 years to life
sentence.

“We are thrilled to celebrate Ronald’s freedom”

Mr. Ross was represented jointly by pro bono attorneys Elliot Peters, Jo
Golub, Reid Mullen and David Rizk of Keker & Van Nest LLP and Linda
Starr and Seth Flagsberg of the Northern California Innocence Project at
Santa Clara University School of Law. Keith McArthur of McArthur
Investigations led the team’s factual investigation of the case and made
the key evidentiary discoveries that led to Mr. Ross’s exoneration.

“We are tremendously grateful that Ronald is coming home,” said Elliot
Peters, partner at Keker & Van Nest LLP. “He is truly innocent. And we
express our gratitude to District Attorney O’Malley for agreeing with us
that Ronald should be freed, and for her dedication to fairness and the
pursuit of justice.”

“We are thrilled to celebrate Ronald’s freedom,” added Linda Starr,
Legal Director of the Northern California Innocence Project. “Eyewitness
misidentification is a leading reason for the wrongful convictions of
innocent people. With the wrong man behind bars, the true perpetrator
was able to continue his violent attacks. Ronald’s case is yet another
example of the tragic ramifications mistaken identifications can have
for both individuals and the community as a whole. We hope that Mr.
Ross’s case will highlight the great need for reform of eyewitness
identification practices.”

On November 8, 2006, Mr. Ross was convicted of the attempted murder of
Renardo Williams, who was shot on the front porch of his West Oakland
apartment on April 15, 2006. The previous day, Williams had confronted a
neighbor, Nikisha Stuart, about an alleged fight between Stuart’s
14-year old son, Steven Embrey, Jr, and Mr. Williams’s daughter. Ms.
Stuart told Mr. Williams she would “send her man” to talk to him. The
next evening, two men, accompanied by Mr. Embrey, Jr., came to Mr.
Williams’ apartment. After a brief confrontation, one of the men shot
Mr. Williams in the ribs and they fled.

Mr. Ross lived in the Oakland neighborhood where the shooting occurred,
but had never met Mr. Williams or Mr. Embrey, Sr., and no physical
evidence linked him to the crime. Mr. Ross was drawn into the
investigation, however, when Oakland Police included his picture in a
routine photographic line-up shown to witnesses, who identified him as
the shooter. At the time, Oakland Police did not believe Mr. Ross was
involved in the shooting, and included him in the line-up merely because
his mother had once lived in the same apartment building as Ms. Stuart.
Police never investigated Mr. Embrey, Sr.

Through more than four years of investigation, Mr. Ross’s legal defense
team uncovered evidence of false testimony by key trial witnesses,
including the victim, and tracked down exculpatory evidence from several
new witnesses. Keker & Van Nest LLP attorneys presented this evidence
and the case for Mr. Ross’s innocence to the Alameda County District
Attorney and the Alameda County Superior Court over three days of
hearings.

During those proceedings, Mr. Embrey, Jr. recanted his trial testimony
and identified his father, Steven Embrey, Sr. as the shooter, explaining
that he feared repercussions from his father, who was known to be
violent and had a criminal history. Mr. Williams testified that he could
not be certain about his trial identification of Mr. Ross as the shooter
and apologized to Mr. Ross for implicating him. Mr. Embrey, Sr., who is
currently facing attempted murder charges for an unrelated shooting in
Oakland, admitted in an interview with Mr. Ross’s legal defense team
that he was present at the shooting, and acknowledged Mr. Ross was not
there and had nothing to do with the incident. Other witnesses located
by Mr. Ross’s team corroborated Mr. Embrey, Jr.’s account of the
shooting.

Keker & Van Nest LLP and NCIP will host a press conference on Monday,
February 25, 2013 at 11 a.m. at the offices of Keker & Van Nest LLP,
located at 633 Battery Street, San Francisco, California. For those
unable to attend, the press conference will be available live via
conference call at:

Toll-free: (877) 699-4804

Passcode: 780142

About Keker & Van Nest LLP

Keker & Van Nest LLP is a 79 lawyer San Francisco litigation firm, whose
attorneys are dedicated to the pursuit of justice and the performance of
pro bono work. Ronald Ross is the fourth California man serving a life
sentence freed by Keker & Van Nest lawyers. Ross now joins John
Tennison, Antoine Goff and Caramad Conley as men whose exonerations are
the result of Keker & Van Nest’s representation in habeas corpus
proceedings. More information is available at http://www.kvn.com.

About the Northern California Innocence Project

The Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) at Santa Clara
University School of Law is a pro bono legal clinical program where law
students, attorneys, pro bono counsel, and volunteers work to free
wrongfully convicted prisoners. NCIP exonerates the innocent, educates
future attorneys, and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent
wrongful convictions. NCIP promotes substantive legislative and policy
reform through data-driven research and policy recommendations aimed at
ensuring the integrity of our justice system. For more information,
please visit http://law.scu.edu/ncip/.

About the Veritas Initiative

The Veritas Initiative is NCIP's policy center devoted to advancing the
integrity of our justice system through research and data-driven reform
using the work of our preeminent experts in the field. The Veritas
Initiative is currently conducting research and issuing critical
data-driven reports in four areas significant to wrongful convictions:
prosecutorial misconduct; eyewitness identification; post-conviction DNA
access and testing; and compensation for the exonerated. The Veritas
Initiative aims to shed light on how these common causes of wrongful
convictions have affected the outcomes of actual cases and how these
injustices could have been prevented. To learn more, please visit http://www.veritasinitiative.org/.

About Santa Clara University School of Law

Santa Clara University School of Law, founded in 1911 on the site of
California’s oldest operating higher-education institution, is dedicated
to educating lawyers who lead with a commitment to excellence, ethics,
and social justice. One of the nation’s most diverse law schools, Santa
Clara Law offers its 975 students an academically rigorous program,
including graduate degrees in international law and intellectual
property law; combined J.D./MBA degree; and certificates in intellectual
property law, international law, and public interest and social justice
law. For more information, see law.scu.edu.